Is America really prepared for hundreds of casualties, even thousands, in an invasion and subsequent occupation that could last many years?

Really, spilt blood is not at all Kristof

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1.
Dean

Right on, Stephen.

And let’s not forget: Yes, we lost about a score of troops in Mogadishu, during the Blackhawk Down incident. How many Somalis died, in order to pull that off?

And that’s against guys who had NO artillery support, NO armor support, and only light gunships (no Apaches). They were outnumbered badly and cut-off. Worst, they were there to do something meant for cops, not soldiers, to grab a bunch of advisors to Aideed, NOT to go in and take and hold an objective (or simply reduce an armed force).

This is not to say Iraqis won’t fight. Some, perhaps many, will. But if there’s dying going on, it’s likely to be far more heavily weighted in their direction than our own.

And with those ratios, they will have to be asking themselves, “Is this worth it? Is Saddam worth it?”

A lot of the scare arguements about Iraq make the mistake of assuming that we’ll fight the way the Iraqi’s want us to. Urban combat is almost certainly going to be limited. Not because we don’t do it better, but to limit civilian casualties. Look, we fight at night, with 3rd generation low light gear. Does anyone think that a pack of poorly trained conscripts with little or no night vision is going to inflict severe casualties? My military training was during the cold war, but official doctrine was, and is, to fight 24 hrs. No let up, no pause, to let the enemy rest and regroup. Our troops are conditioned for that. It’s a lead pipe cinch that the Iraqi’s are not that good.